The Times We Live In
by kikila
Summary: The water should be her element, her home. She should like it. But she doesn't. She can't. Next-Generation drabbles.
1. Grace

**A/N**

**This will be a collection of drabbles that take place in between ATLA and LoK, focusing on the children of our beloved Gaang. Here's a briefing on my headcanon-**

**We already know that Tenzin was born in 119 ASC, and Lin in 120 ASC. In my mind, Kya was born in 113 ASC and Bumi was born in 115 ASC.**

**Sokka and Suki had four kids (Oomailiq and Pannik are boys)**

**Oomailiq-110 ASC**

**Sakari- 110 ASC**

**Kaskae- 112 ASC**

**Pannik- 116 ASC**

**Zuko and Mai had three daughters **

**Ursa-110 ASC**

**Ta Min-114 ASC**

**Ilah-120 ASC (I've got this feeling that Ilah was an accident ;-)**

**Sorry for the absurd author's note. There won't be any more, I promise.**

* * *

Ta Min was the tallest, and the boniest.

When they stood for portraits, Ta Min always stood in back, in between Mother and Dad, while Ilah and Ursa sat in the foreground. It looked better that way, the painter assured Dad, even though Ursa, as the eldest, should have been the one standing.

"I assure you, sir, the painting will have better symmetry if Princess Ta Min stands. I'm sure Princess Ursa won't mind." She did, a little bit, but in the end Ursa was glad she got to sit down.

Ta Min was always a little bit taller, but by the time she was sixteen, she was taller than Mother, and the same height as Father. Tall, and gangly too. Like a skinny, flat pole. They all joked about it, of course, Mother and Dad, Uncle Sokka and obnoxious little Lin, even Kya, Ta Min's best friend, made the occasional crack about her outrageous height.

At first, Ta Min wished she could be petite and curvy, like her sisters. For years, she slouched, trying to shorten her spine. She drank "miracle tea", to fill out her chest, though Grandfather Iroh told her it wouldn't work. She even tried stuffing her shirt, but that stopped the moment Dad saw her and demanded that his little girl "pull those scarves out of her shirt!"

But once she started learning how to throw stilettos from Mother, Ta Min's doubts fell away. Her tall, slim frame was more graceful, more flexible. She could hurl the knives better than her sisters; better, even, than her mother, over time. Her lack of breasts made it easier to throw and twist, easier to run without worrying about bouncing.

Ta Min was the tallest, and the most graceful.


	2. Some Girls

There were girls, and there were _girls_.

When Bumi told him this a couple years ago in a fit of brotherly wisdom, Tenzin had snorted. At the age of eleven, girls were the last thing on his mind. He had more important things to think about, like mastering the next airbending level, and convincing Mom to let him get that new, complete edition of Airbender geography scrolls.

But now, Tenzin could feel Bumi's words bouncing around in his head as he stood on the edge of the tree-covered cliff, watching the large metal boat sail away. On the deck, he could just barely make out the pink and red clad figure of Ilah, waving frantically at them. Next to him, Lin was waving too, her usually serious face lit up with a smile. They always waved good-bye to Ilah when she went home, he and Lin did. They would stand, side by side, shoulders almost touching, jumping up and down and waving their hands and arms and even their bodies, sometimes. It was a tradition, something he could do in his sleep. But standing next to Lin had never felt so _foreign_ before.

Tenzin was surrounded by girls. Mom, who was always there, cooking and healing, laughing and playing. Kya, who was bossy and determined, always in charge. Aunt Toph, stubborn as the rock she bent and quick to make a joke. Aunt Suki, who was brave and strong, and Aunt Mai, who was quiet, but perceptive. Perky Aunt Ty Lee and moody, scholarly Ursa. Cousin Kari, the almost warrior, and quiet, nearly invisible Cousin Kae. Fierce, yet sad Ta Min. And Ilah, of course, his nice, happy-go-lucky, second best friend.

But then there was Lin. Lin was his best friend. He'd known her since he was a year old, and she was just a newborn, and ever since that moment, they'd been inseparable. Lin and Tenzin. Tenzin and Lin.

Every day after school, they'd wander the city, peeking in shops and running through the park. They'd take boat rides in Yue Bay and every summer, when they visited the Fire Nation, their bedrooms were right next door. They'd visit Uncle Sokka and Aunt Suki in the South Pole, where Tenzin's Gramp-Gramp lived. Sometimes Lin would go away, to visit her own grandparents in Gaoling, but she never stayed long. She couldn't stand them.

But the Lin that Tenzin had always known was slipping away. When he looked at her face now, she wasn't just Lin, black haired and green eyed, slightly tanned, with sunburn on her nose. Now she had hair like the sleek wing of a cat owl, eyes like Uncle Iroh's tasty green tea, skin like the soft tanned seal hides that Uncle Sokka kept in his igloo.

"Tenzin? Tenzin? Tenzin, what the hell are you doing?" Lin's voice roughly shakes him out of his daydream. She's looking at him, eyebrows raised. "Why were you staring at me?" she asks him.

"I wasn't staring at you, I was just lost in thought." he replies. He swears he can see her face fall, if only a little bit. No. He must only be imagining it.

"Come on. Let's go back down to the temple and see if your uncle left any seal jerky. I'll race you-sorry, _beat_ you back down." He doesn't eat meat, and she knows it. Something isn't right. But he doesn't acknowledge it, and neither does she, so he lets it slide.

"Don't make challenges you can't live up to." He smiles, and she smiles, and everything is normal again.

It's on his way back down that it hits him. Bumi was right. Lin is a _girl_. But he pushes the thought away, and soars down the rest of the hill easily on his glider.

* * *

**A/N **

**I honestly don't like this. I think it's heavy, and lopsided. But maybe you like it. Care to tell me about it?**


	3. Earned

People always apologize. They look at you, then look back at your family. "I'm sorry", they say, "It must be hard", they tell you.

You'd like to let them know that it **isn't**.

There are plenty of nonbenders in the world. You know quite a few of them, and they are all wonderful people. In fact, you grew up on an island surrounded by nonbenders, with four very prominent exceptions.

Sure, Dad is an airbender, and so is Tenzin. It's just _marvtastical_! They can make the air move around, and they can fly (which is admittedly cool). But you can fly too, on the back of a sky bison.

And Mom and Kya are waterbenders. They can _splash_ people, and freeze your mango juice just when you're about to take a sip (Kya doesn't like to be pranked). But you can splash too, with your hands and with your feet.

No, you don't wish you were a 'bender. You're kind of glad you aren't one. Nobody can ever say that you got where you are because of your parents (it's a common accusation). You aren't a commander because you used fancy 'bending skills. You're a commander because you studied, because you _earned _it.

And that means more to you than all the 'bending skill in the world.

* * *

**I had trouble with Bumi. I had this whole thing planned for him, and then his canon characterization came up (in Korra), so I had to re-do it. Next up is Kya, then I think Kari and Ursa. Also, this is my first thing in second person EVER, so tell me how you like it!**


	4. Watery Grave

Kya doesn't really like water. She knows that as a waterbender, she should. The water should be her element, her home. She_ should_ like it. But she doesn't. She can't.

She 'bends water for one reason. She has to; in the same way a reluctant soldier must heed their commander. If she abstains from waterbending, if, for just one day, she doesn't 'bend, then it builds up inside her. It froths and bubbles, churning, twisting her inside out. The water rises from the bay to greet her as she walks by, without being bid to. It tickles her neck and nips at her toes, begging to be played with. It is an annoying pet, the silly cat that won't be pinned down when you wish to play, but won't stop batting at your calves when you're steeped in paperwork.

So Kya obeys, and waterbends, unable to escape the lure of the bay. She makes frozen drinks, she splashes her silly little brothers. She practices mom's moves, to make her proud. She wears blue and purple and white, though she's envious of Ta Min's bright pinks and reds. The dull blue of her tunic feels so drab compared to the sunshine colors of Fire Nationers, the same way that water is a pale, colorless thing compared to the vibrancy of a burning flame.

She is talented, of course. How could she not be? Her mother is an esteemed waterbending master and healer. Her father is the Avatar. But her practice is halfhearted. She doesn't feel joyful after practice, just sweaty. Sometimes she regards waterbending as a curse. It is something everyone expects her to do, expects her to be skilled at, and expects her to adore. If only the latter could be true.

When Kya is eighteen she leaves Republic City. It is not an abrupt departure. She says goodbye, and takes the next balloon east. The bay can no longer tempt her.

She ends up in the Si Wong. There is little water in the desert. No tendrils reach out to her from the pathetic ice block at the Misty Palms Oasis. Here, she is only Kya, the mysterious blue-eyed drink-maker. She is not the Avatar's daughter or the Fire Lord's goddaughter. She is not a waterbending master.

It is beautiful. For a while. But after fifty years, a dead husband and five children, she begins to feel the pull again. The bay is calling her, tempting her. She tells herself that there are other reasons. She didn't go to her father's funeral-she needs to see his tomb and make amends. She hasn't seen her brother in years-shouldn't she go back and meet her nieces and nephews? And her mother is ancient now, over a hundred years in age. Doesn't she owe her mother one last visit before she's gone forever?

Resistance is futile. Within a month of the first urging, she packs up and goes back to her childhood home. Mom is there, her life hanging by a thread, older than Kya ever thought she could look. Everyone is old now. Even Tenzin's children are adults now, with children of their own. Everything and everyone the way she knew it is gone or changed, unredeemable.

But the bay remains. The night of her return, Kya goes out to see it. She floats in it, bobbing up and down on the water like a strange, wrinkled, human buoy. She doesn't even notice when it swallows her, pulling her down in a spiral towards the earth, because she is too entranced by the water. In the way it rocks her back and forth, the way in pulls her in, it has captured her, body and soul.

They never find her body. It rests, eyes shut in peaceful bliss, on the bottom of the bay, where it will stay for all eternity. After a lifetime of struggling to stay away from the bay, Kya has finally lost.

* * *

**A/N**

**The ending is iffy but I sort of like that it's not too happy. And just for a time reference thing, the very end takes place about 10 years after LoK.**


End file.
